Suit Over Faulty Computers Highlights Dell’s Decline

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/technology/29dell.html?src=me&ref=homepage

 

Dispicable and cold blooded fraud by Dell

Dell

What a joke, except it's not

Not just Dell

I've been using Nichicon capacitors for years in other equipment, and havn't noticed any duds. I'll be taking a closer look and testing from now on.

 

I agree completely. The interesting point is how a company in such predicament reacts to the problem. I'm usually wary of huge discounts on computers, as they could have defective components which companies might try to compensate within warranty periods.

 

The batch of faulty capacitors affected many brands, as noted above...Gigabyte motherboards, as well as many Abits and MSI motherboards, and other brands.

Dell has honored hardware warranty on the affected models, replacing them under warranty even after the standard 3 year warranty had passed. About 2 years ago I had Dell ship replacement boards on a huge fleet of PCs at a school, and that was about 3.5 years after purchase. They made it very easy.

 

wow i hope my XPS DELL dont give me those kind of headaches

 

It was more than a "batch" - and it was caps from more than one cap maker too. But you are correct it affected the entire industry, not just Dell. It affected all motherboard makers. But Dell did a lousy job of handling it - initially - well, for a while, actually, until they started taking a lot of heat from consumers and the IT press.

I had a couple Gigabyte boards suffer from leaky caps and Gigabyte replaced them promptly - including one that was 6 months past the 3 year warranty - one reason I really like, use, and recommend Gigabyte boards.

 

I refer to the cheapo ones that came from Taiwan as a "batch". Yes there are/were several plants in Taiwan that made caps. The general lore about it, and it's pretty much widely accepted as true, is that industrial spying led to a capacitor electrolyte formula being brought to several super cheap Taiwan factories to make capacitors. That particular formula was partially complete..but they didn't know that. The incomplete formula did not include an important component to combat corrosion of the caps. So several plants in Taiwan made the electrolyte for the caps...not knowing they were using an incomplete formula..they hit the market and underbid the other cap makers in Japan and other places..won a lot of contracts (due to steep under bidding on contracts)...and the rest is history.